Team

Namecoin is developed by an international team of academics and volunteers working to protect free speech online and save the world from an Orwellian surveillance state.

Daniel Kraft (domob)

Chief Namecoin Scientist
Daniel is our lead C++ developer, currently working on Namecoin Core. Daniel is also our specialist for identity applications, being the author of NameID, the Bitmessage Namecoin integration, and the OTR Namecoin integration. Daniel has a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Graz in Austria.

Phelix

Lead Windows Developer & Community Organizer
Phelix (who goes by a pseudonym) is our lead Windows developer, and works on namecoind, Namecoin-Qt, NMControl, and other projects such as ANTPY. Phelix also handles financial matters and (along with Jeremy) fundraising, and is our longest-serving team member.

Ryan Castellucci

Lead Security Engineer
Ryan is our security specialist and all-around-badass, handling everything from web infrastructure to C++ development to crisis management.

Jeremy Rand (biolizard89)

Lead Application Engineer & Community Organizer
Jeremy is our .bit application specialist, and works on our codebases relating to TLS, Tor, and SPV, among other projects. Jeremy also handles fundraising (along with Phelix), and acts as our build engineer. Outside of Namecoin, he has a background in console game hacking (in particular, synchronizing multiple game consoles with each other and with virtual reality hardware) and educational robotics. Jeremy is currently a computer science graduate student at University of Oklahoma in the U.S.

Brandon “Brando” Roberts

Lead C++ GUI Engineer
Brandon is a hacker with a background in independent journalism and machine learning who works on Namecoin-Qt. In addition to his work on Namecoin Core, he maintains a Namecoin port of Bitcore, Bitcore-Namecoin. When he’s not on his computer he’s probably skateboarding.

Joseph Bisch

Lead Porting & Reproducible Build Engineer
Joseph works on porting Bitcoin software to Namecoin, and also specializes in reproducible builds. Outside of Namecoin, he has done development work relating to Bitcoin wallet software, the Gitian reproducible build tool (his contributions are primarily used by The Tor Project), and the Debian GNU/Linux distribution.

Andrew Colosimo (Snailbrain)

Developer & Community Organizer
Snailbrain (who prefers his pseudonym) is an IT specialist who initiated the creation of Namecoin-Qt alongside Mikhail, and was the main funder of Namecoin development during most of 2013; he also contributes to testing and development. Snailbrain is also the creator of the Huntercoin concept, which is currently Namecoin’s only fork. Huntercoin’s current development has improved Namecoin on many levels with the help of the coding expertise of Daniel.

Cassini

OS X Maintainer
Cassini (working under a pseudonym) holds the reins in the Mac OS X world. He is another dauntless tester and one of our blockchain watchdogs.

Peter Conrad (pmc)

Linux Build Maintainer
Peter uses his 20 years of Unix/Linux experience to manage Namecoin packages for the major Linux distributions. Outside the Namecoin community he is working as a freelance software developer.

Anonymous Developers

We have several developers who prefer to remain anonymous; their anonymity does not reflect the incredible impact their contributions have made to Namecoin. We are deeply grateful for their work.

Former Developers

We have several developers who are no longer active in the community, listed below.

Mikhail Sindeyev (thecoder)

Mikhail (then acting under a pseudonym) was our lead C++ developer for roughly a year (prior to Daniel), working on namecoind and creating Namecoin-Qt. Mikhail was a PhD student at Moscow State University. In 2014 Mikhail tragically died of a stroke at the age of 29. His identity was made public shortly after his death so that his great contribution to free speech technology would be recognized.

Khalahan Henkh (khal)

Khalahan (a pseudonym) was our lead C++ developer for roughly two years (prior to Mikhail), working on namecoind and creating NMControl. Khalahan is currently retired.

Vincent Durham (vinced)

Vincent (a pseudonym) was the creator of Namecoin, forking Bitcoin’s code to create the first solution to Zooko’s Triangle. Vincent is currently retired.